Chapter 325 (Patreon)

Chapter 325

Errol and Ari had their match, and the jaguar easily turned out to be victorious. She overdid it a little, though, and ended up melting the fight club arena by using so much power that Sophia had to step in to prevent her from burning down the entire island by transporting the excess fire directly into her domain.

“Sophia, can you please have a match with the demons and show them that I’m the least extreme in the group?!” After she finished her match with Errol and climbed out of the arena, Ari was immediately swarmed by a group of demons who showered her in praise for the ruthlessness and power she displayed, as both these things were highly prestigious for the demon folk. It took her a good ten minutes to get past them and rejoin the rest of the group, where she immediately glared at the tiger.

“How am I supposed to go more overboard than you did?” Sophia looked honestly confused. “You almost ended this island.”

“…” She had nothing to say in her defense.

“It’s my turn first anyway!” Steph joined the conversation. “I also doubt I can match your freak, but I’ll certainly try!”

“I want to go home…” They hadn’t even made it to the mainland yet, but Ari already had enough.

“Though, before we get to that, is there a more open place on this island?” The dog-girl looked at Igis, who was standing next to the group. “I’m a big fan of the arena pit, but it’s too cramped for my way of using magic. I have to run around, and I need space to play!”

“There is a small field on the north side of the island that we didn’t show during the tour earlier because it’s, well… it’s just a field. Many of us often practice bigger types of magic there. Some of us have burned down our wood and straw huts way too often, so we made a designated place for training.” Igis looked at multiple of her fellow demons while explaining the situation.

“That sounds like it would work!” Steph energetically clapped her hands. “Can we go there for my match?!”

“I don’t see why not.” She shrugged in return. “Who do you want to fight, though?”

“Everyone~.” The dog-girl smirked at the group of demons a little further away from them. “I want to fight a couple of you all at the same time to see how I fare against a group of demons! Who wants to have a go?”

“Me!” Several of them instantly raised their arms. Ari’s earlier display of power had far from made them afraid of the group, and each of them was raring to test their strength against the newcomers.

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“Yup, that totally works well enough!” Everyone relocated to the field Igis mentioned, and Steph eagerly clapped her hands as she looked over the 100-by-100-meter big area in front of them. “Have you all already decided on who wants to give it a try?” She then looked at the group of demons a little away from the main group.

“Yes.” Five of them, three men and two women, stepped forward.

“Five, huh?” The dog-girl mustered them. “Seems around right for the size of this field! Let’s go!” She smiled at the group. “Also, you all start attacking me first if that’s okay. Ari here finished a little prematurely to have enough fun, if you ask me.”

“Hey!” The jaguar didn’t like her wording. “Five seconds was all he could take of me!”

“Oi!” Errol really didn’t like her wording.

“Let’s go!” As much as Steph was a fan of such conversation, she had something even more fun ahead of her. “Alright, everyone, do you wor- WOAH!” She wasn’t even able to finish her sentence before two high-speed fireballs flew towards her face and made her dodge to the side to avoid them.

She didn’t have any time to even reorient herself, though. The moment Steph adjusted her pose, a handful of ice spears were already aiming for her new position. She immediately ducked down and created an earthen wall that the spears pierced instead of her body.

The moment the ice impacted into the wall, the next attack of the demons followed in an instant. A massive torrent of water crashed over her and promptly flooded the entire area. Not having had any time to react, or Steph decided to let them have their fun, the world will never know, she was drenched from ear to toe after appearing from behind her earthen wall.

The demons, feeling sorry for that, decided to collectively dry her with yet another fireball, only that it was so big that the dog-girl got swallowed whole. A few moments later, once the flames flickered out, Steph was still standing there. Pristine and dry.

“How are you not affected even by this much fire?!” One of the demons just had to make this retort after none of their attacks seemed to be working.

“I regularly get set on fire by my girlfriend’s mother, so my body developed a natural immunity against flames.” Steph just shrugged in return.

“That’s not how bodies work!” He didn’t accept that explanation.

“Thank you!” Ari was happy that at least one of the demons seemed to be sensible.

“So you got your affinity to fire from your mother?” Errol looked at the jaguar while tilting his head, as he was still convinced the group was her harem.

“Steph’s not my girlfriend!” She met his gaze with a glare of her own.

“Mhm-hm.” His earlier defeat didn’t take away any of his sass.

“Grr!”

"Is there anything else you all want to try, or is it my time yet?" Steph looked at her challengers with a big grin on her face.

“We know when we’re outclassed.” One of the demons replied to her while the other four shook their heads in agreement. “We’d need all the people on the island and a much bigger place to put a dent in you.”

“Hehe, sounds like fun!” Steph liked the sound of that. “I definitely want to have a big group fight once we’re on the mainland! Anyway, does that mean I can have a go now? I have a somewhat better control over magic than our harem protagonist, so I won’t hurt anyone too badly or make Sophia step in!”

“HEY!” Ari didn’t like that one, either.

“Anyway, here I go~.” The dog-girl energetically clapped her hands and her expression turned serious for a moment. At the same time, everyone could feel how she was flooding the area with magic.

Then, her expression turned even more smug as she snapped her fingers and everything around them changed. There was a flash of white before the temperature instantly dropped by an extreme amount. Once they opened their eyes again after instinctively closing them from the flash, the demons saw that the field they were on had changed seasons. The ground around them was covered in a thick layer of snow, and the palm trees and bushes surrounding the place had been completely frozen over. On top of that, the five demons that had challenged her were imprisoned in a cage made with ice spears.

“I regret giving you that much power…” Sophia didn't like anything about what just happened as she mumbled those words.

"I love you." Maya, Ari, and Anna all had the same reaction and were not beating the poly or harem allegations anytime soon when they smiled at the blonde. Sophia had seen Steph's trick coming and had taken some precautions for the four cats of their group. In the area around them, the temperature had remained normal, and there was no snow on the ground either.

“Much appreciated.” Fen sent a small nod in her direction as Sophia had done the same for him as well.

“Wow, all of us here on the island might not even be enough for a scratch.” The demons in their ice prisons immediately threw up their hands in defeat.

“Damn.” Errol looked and sounded extremely impressed. “You girls are impressive. This is less total power than what my fire-friend did, but the control of your magic is immaculate.”

“Great to hear!” Steph gave him a thumbs-up. “I’ve been training a lot lately in order to not get completely left behind by my sister when it comes to doing fun things with magic.”

"So there really is even more of you beast folk with an insane amount of power?"

“Nah, the blonde one over there is my sister.” She pointed at Sophia, who lightly waved her hand in return.

“Ahh, the one meddling around with magic the entire time while pretending to be normal is your sister, huh?” Igis eyed Sophia before smiling at the dog-girl. “I can’t say you look much alike, though. Is that different when it comes to siblings amongst the beast folk?”

“We have different fathers.” Steph had an easy explanation ready without revealing any of the shenanigans the two did to themselves.

“That makes sense.” As the demon woman had no reason to question a perfectly sound explanation, she just nodded before focusing on Sophia. “So, with that topic finally on the table, how about you show us what you’re hiding?”

“Whatever do you mean?” Sophia decided to feign ignorance.

“Nuh-uh.” Ignis immediately shook her head. “I instantly noticed that you’re hiding something with your magic. Something about you definitely feels off in that direction. I constantly feel magic working around you, yet nothing about your authority ever changes, and don’t even pretend that you didn’t do anything to prevent your jaguar going out of control earlier or made sure that your cat friends weren’t affected by your sister’s magic.”

“It’s quite obvious.” Errol had also noticed the same while most of the demons in the background nodded along.

“…”

“I guess I have to make you talk during our challenge.” Igis' smile changed, and her expression turned competitive. "I have little hopes of winning this, but I wanna poke the beast!”

“Hey!” The blonde didn’t like her wording.

As Sophia knew by now that a demon would never go back on a challenge, as has been very well proven with Ari, she eventually gave up with a sigh and got ready for her match with Igis.